Ubuntu
checkgmail package

By default, Firefox does not open as a new window.

Bug #63683 reported by Jeff Greene
4
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
checkgmail (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Wishlist
Unassigned

Bug Description

With the default settings, Firefox does not open in a new window. This can cause problems if Firefox is already open but minimized when the tray icon is double-clicked to open Gmail. No window is opened and so people will keep clicking the icon, thinking it did not work. This will only cause more Gmail tabs to be opened minimized.

A workaround is to have the command to execute on clicking the tray icon be:
firefox -new-window %u

Revision history for this message
Rich Johnson (nixternal) wrote :

Yes this can be annoying, I had gotten used to looking at the tray icon, as it will usually display the page it is currently on.

When I click gmail, it says "Welcome to Gmail" in the tray. I can confirm that Firefox does not in fact open in a new window, but does open in a new tab instead, so if Firefox is minimized, and the user does not look at the tray icon, they may not know they opened a new tab.

Changed in checkgmail:
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
status: Unconfirmed → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Diego Ongaro (ongardie) wrote :

Note that gmail-notify, Gaim's about dialog, revelation password manager, Gnome's panel launchers, and many other applications have this same issue.

Opening tabs in a (forced) new window isn't exactly the best behavior if the user prefers new tabs. However, focusing the Firefox window that opened the new tab is certainly expected.

I think the proper approach is to improve the /usr/bin/firefox shell script to suggest to the window manager that it should focus Firefox when it opens new tabs. This way, it would fix the issue for software across the entire distro.

Revision history for this message
Tom Adams (holizz) wrote :

I'm not sure Firefox had the option at the time this bug was active, but you can now set items from external processes to open either in new tabs or new windows, and Firefox pops up on a new tab as well. So I'm marking this as fixed.

Changed in checkgmail:
status: Confirmed → Fix Released
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